Dying Will
by Cindy Snowflake
Summary: All Harry wanted to accomplish this summer was not think about Sirius. Well, it's certainly not easy to lay in bed depressed all day when your morning wake up call is an exploding grenade. Turns out Dudley got a summer home tutor, and Harry isn't sure what's weirder - the fact that it's a baby, or the fact that it's a hitman.
1. Chapter 1: Dudley's Home Tutor

**A/N: No, I have no idea where this is going... There'll be about three chapters, and then probably nothing for a year or so while I try to brainstorm an actual plotline for this .**

**Yes, I'm still working on my other stories. I'm literally chipping away at my writer's block for Pirate Conqueror a sentence or two at a time. It's very tedious.**

**Chapter One**

**Dudley's Home Tutor**

The ride home started off quite tense as the Dursleys did their best to forget the group of wizards and witches that dared threaten them in the public of King's Cross station while Harry was doing his best to enjoy the moment as long as he could. It wouldn't last – his relatives were simply too ingrained in their ways to stay quiet.

Aunt Petunia broke first. "Well boy," she sniffed, "I hope you aren't getting any ideas about slacking off this summer. I know perfectly well you have none of your freakish homework to do and we have a guest staying in our home now."

Harry gaped. For one, it was galling that his aunt dared mention his summer assignments taking up his time since they never let him do any; for another, it was a shocking thought that Aunt Petunia knew there were no summer assignments after OWLs year.

"Smeltings sent a home tutor to stay with Dudley this summer and he'll be rooming with you. You will make sure he has a pleasant stay. I won't have you ruining this opportunity for my Diddy-dums. It's bad enough the school doesn't appreciate his intelligence and actually sent such an abnormal person."

Uncle Vernon grunted. "Strange man, it is. What's the problem with him again?"

Aunt Petunia sniffed again. "Dwarfism I believe. Can you believe the man wanted to sleep in the same room as Duddlykins at first? Thank goodness we convinced him to move out. What if he infected my poor baby?"

Harry knew the Dursleys would just love it if he was infected and started to shrink until he looked like those midgets on the telly. There was a documentary on dwarfism at some point, Harry thought. It was playing after Dudley fell asleep in front of the screen and Harry was supposed to dust the room quietly so as to not wake his cousin. He was pretty sure the narrator said it was a genetic disorder and not contagious, but the image of Dudley and Uncle Vernon shrinking into bowling balls and Aunt Petunia into a baseball bat made him snicker. Perhaps when he learned a bit of human transfiguration…?

The car pulled up to the house and the Dursleys climbed out of the car, leaving Harry to lug his trunk in. Hedwig was cooperatively silent as he carried her up the stairs before going back down for the rest of his stuff. Thankfully, Uncle Vernon hadn't bothered to lock up his things this summer, but Harry still planned to hide some things under the loose floorboard in case the man changed his mind. No school books, since there was no homework, but he would definitely need to safely store away his invisibility cloak and photo album since –

'No.' Harry firmly told himself. He would not think about the shattered mirror lying on the bottom of his trunk.

Opening the door, a light 'click' sound was Harry's only warning before a loud explosion blasted the door to bits.

"Bloody hell!" Harry cried out, pulling his wand out and directing it towards the cloud of smoke, ignoring the heat that singed his hair and skin. What was that? Surely there weren't Death Eaters in his room?

"Boy!" came a desperate and furious whisper from downstairs. "Put that freakish stick away you idiot boy! What have we told you about such things in the house?"

"But Aunt Petunia," Harry protested, shocked that his Aunt wasn't even bothering to comment on the fact that something clearly exploded in her house and was currently making a mess of the hallway.

"No buts! That's just the home tutor. He has strange hobbies, probably a result of that strange disease of his, but he cleans up after himself so just ignore it, you understand? And take a shower. I won't have you spreading that black soot all over my clean house."

Harry scowled but said nothing. The dust settled and Harry took a cautious peek into the room. There, sitting on his bed and surrounded by firearms of kinds was an toddler – no older than three – dressed impeccably in a business suit with shiny black shoes and a wide-brimmed fedora, on which was perched a chameleon.

"Ciao. You must be my student's cousin. I'm Reborn."

Harry blinked. This was the home tutor? The wizard wasn't quite sure what his relatives were smoking – perhaps Dudley hid some pot in the air vents? – but this was no dwarf. He didn't know why it was talking. He didn't know why it was dressed so formally. He sure as hell didn't know why it owned a collection of guns. One thing the boy wizard did know, however, was that this home tutor was most definitely in the physical body of a baby.

"Er, yeah, nice to meet you," Harry replied awkwardly. It probably wasn't a Death Eater. Most Death Eaters had too much misplaced pride to disguise themselves as a child and certainly wouldn't dare touch anything so muggle as a gun. They also couldn't possibly get past the wards, right? And he was quite sure Dumbledore still had a guard posted to keep an eye on him at all times. Not to mention that after a long car ride where he did his best to not remember the past year, he was just too tired to care. "I'm Harry, Harry Potter, and I, er, sleep here too, so if maybe we could figure out a way to let me come in without a bomb going off each time that'd be great."

"I will set the wires up around the bed from now on," the baby replied with a light Italian accent.

"Yeah," Harry nodded, turning to get his stuff. He couldn't really unpack while the other was watching, but maybe that wouldn't be necessary anymore. If the "home tutor" Reborn's hobby was explosions, his uncle probably wouldn't dare come in to take his trunk. "I'll, er, move the bed over some in just a bit if that's alright with you. I'll need to fit my cot in this room too."

"Closer to the door please."

Harry paused. Did he really want to be boxed into a room with a bomb-freak between him and the exit? On the other hand, what exactly would he say to change the person's mind? Oh, I'm sorry, but do you think I could take the door instead? I'd like a retreat path in case you try to kill me in my sleep. Harry snorted. If the baby wanted to kill him in his sleep, having a door wouldn't change a thing. Still…

"Sure," he agreed, "as long as you keep the window booby-trap free."

"Can't do that," the toddler stated calmly. "A trap-free window is just asking for a bullet."

Harry sighed harshly and grumbled irritated. "Just who's trying to kill _you_ then, huh?" He stomped out the dusty doorway and shoved his trunk into the room and returned, slightly more gently, with Hedwig in hand. "Can I at least let my owl out?"

Reborn cocked his head and appeared to think it over a bit before jumping down from the lumpy mattress and walking over to the window. With a series of hops, the baby came away with a handful of wires and grenades. That kind of agility in a toddler was abnormal beyond even magic, but Harry didn't care anymore.

The rest of the day went smoothly. Reborn was the strangest thing Harry's seen since Voldemort's resurrection but if he ignored the little things that practically screamed professional-hit-man-in-a-baby's-body then the wizard could deal. Strong enough to push the bed with greater ease than Harry? Meh, at least the room was rearranged quickly enough for the two to arrive on time for dinner. Dinner was a tense affair where everyone tried to ignore everyone else and if the baby managed to reflect the spoonful of peas Dudley flicked at him straight into the boy's mouth so that the spoiled bully nearly choked? Meh, at least he didn't blame Harry like his aunt and uncle began to. Bedtime came quickly after washing the dishes, dusting the living room, and vacuuming the master bedroom, and if the door to his bedroom was fixed and the hallway cleaned by the time Harry lifted the vacuum up the steps? Meh, less work for Harry then.

Sleep, unfortunately, did not come soon after bedtime. Harry laid awake in his cot, easily ignoring the presence of another as he stared out the window. A star twinkled from a crack in the clouds and Harry pulled his thin sheet over his head. He wasn't going to think about it.

The next morning, Harry wanted nothing more than to languish in his cot. He wasn't hungry and he certainly didn't want to get up. Getting up meant the day would start again. Getting up and eating meant living and _thinking_ for a whole day during which Harry was not going to get a letter from Sirius. Not today, not ever again.

Life did not agree. An hour after the sun rose, Reborn awoke and proceeded to wake his obese cousin. Harry wasn't quite sure how the baby did it, but there was an extremely impressive crash just minutes after he left the room followed by Dudley's furious cursing, threats, and finally cries for mercy.

Harry sighed. Clearly, the home tutor was doing a very good job of making Dudley miserable, and while he liked that thought very much, it meant Aunt Petunia would surely do her very best to make Harry even more miserable. Deciding to beat the system, even just a little, Harry got up to make breakfast.

Dudley and Uncle Vernon inhaled a dozen servings of bacon and hotcakes with a side of bangers and mash, all the while quaffing down coffee and soda pop. Aunt Petunia ate her pre-made fruit salad from the local supermarket and Reborn sipped on a cup of espresso. Harry sat quietly in a corner, fiddling with a piece of toast before choking it down and standing up.

"I'm going out," he announced. Dudley and Vernon ignored him, but as he reached the door, Petunia called out to him.

"Be back by noon, boy. I won't have your freakish friends complaining we haven't been feeding you. And the garden needs weeding."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia."

The park was mostly empty. The public school had not yet let out for summer so Harry had plenty of peace and quiet as he sat on the broken swings. Harry did not want peace and quiet since peace and quiet led to thinking, so Harry drowned his thoughts with pleas for distraction, eyes wandering around to see if he could spot his guards.

An hour later, noise could be heard approaching. It was Dudley and his gang of boys playing hooky. Harry groaned internally but stayed put. There was no point trying to escape now as running away from the get-go only encouraged them to chase without thinking.

"Hey, Big D," Piers sneered, "looks like your cousin still don't know to stay off our turf."

Dudley chuckled nervously. "He's just an insane criminal. Come on guys, let's find someone to beat up."

"No way," Piers protested, flexing his fingers. "We can just beat up the runt like we used to. Don't tell me that private school's made you soft, Big D? We didn't touch him at all these past few summers and I think it's getting to the kid's head. Let's mess him up."

Harry glared at Dudley for a moment before wiping his face blank and looking out at the gang with a vapid smile. "My my, fancy seeing the old team again. Skipping classes? Naughty, naughty," he teased. "In my school, truants are punished with something wooden, long, and thin. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, don't you? Think I should try it on you to see if you smarten up a bit?"

The reactions varied. Dudley paled dramatically as his mind sunk immediately to the magic wand Harry was carrying in his back pocket. Most boys assumed Harry was talking about the cane while a few others looked sick, their thoughts no doubt draining down the gutters to Harry's disgust.

"Until next time," Harry parted, walking off while concentrating sharply to try and hear if he should start running.

"Seriously Big D –

"What' wrong with you –

"Ciao –

A gunshot.

Harry froze. Surely not? He turned around. Dudley's body fell to the floor and his gang stood in a circle around him, gaping in shock. Not three feet away was Reborn, the baby home tutor, whose smoking gun slithered into the form of a chameleon.

Tick. Tick. Tick. The seconds dragged. Dudley was dead. He was killed by a hitman in the body of a toddler. A part of him was freaking out that his guards hadn't even noticed. Just what kind of pitiful job at protecting the neighborhood were they doing? Another part of him was already superimposing Dudley's falling body with his godfather's. Guess what kind of sick dreams Harry was going to have tonight?

"REBORN!" Dudley's obese body tore itself upwards from where he fell, ripping through his clothes so that he was dressed in his boxers. It would have been an extremely disgusting sight were it not for the flames burning on his forehead that drew all eyes upwards. "I'm going to break that freak's stick with my dying will!"

Harry was starting to get a little sick and tired of constantly being confused. It had only been a single day since coming back from Hogwarts and he felt like he had already filled his strangeness quota for the entire coming school year. Nevertheless, it was no mystery what Harry had to do now. As his cousin lunged his way, half-naked and forehead burning, Harry ran.

Down Privet Drive, faster and faster, running full-tilt as the gate of the local primary school loomed in the distance. Harry prepared himself for a sharp turn, body angling and feet shoving against the ground in a sideways, sliding manner as he propelled himself to the left into the alleyway between the school wall and the edge of the residential area. This was a trick Harry used often when he was younger. As a smaller and lighter child, Harry was naturally more agile. Dudley would be forced to slow down at this obstacle, and as soon as he lost the speed from his momentum, the lazy boy would feel the fatigue from running pulling him back from continuing the chase. Sometimes his gang would act smart and block off the alleyway, but that wasn't a problem today.

No, today the problem was that Dudley didn't slow down. He tore down the street after Harry, practically crashing into the wall and raising a cloud of dust from the impact before letting out a large roar as he turned the corner and threw himself into running again.

Harry cursed and scanned the walls. He couldn't scale the school wall or the buildings on the other side in the short time he'd have before Dudley caught up. Desperately he tried to remember the landscape on the other end of the alleyway. Surely there were some tall trees?

Harry praised Merlin as a large oak tree was revealed around the corner and he quickly leaped up the branches. Whatever crazy magic that baby performed on Dudley made his cousin much more resilient, but the wizard highly doubted it made Dudley any lighter or else the impact with the stone wall earlier would not have made such a loud noise. If Dudley still weighed more than 15 stone, the branches wouldn't support him, even if he managed to jump onto the first limb six feet above ground.

Dudley came just seconds later after Harry swung up into the tree. His head whipped back and forth as he tried to locate Harry, eventually looking up to see the wizard hiding in a tree. After a few unsuccessful tries at reaching the first branch, Dudley finally settled for roaring in fury, occasionally screaming "Dying Will!" as he punched the solid oak tree. Vibrations made Harry's body tremble as he hoped the trunk would be able to ride out the flaming boy's temper.

A single tense minute later, the flame on Dudley's forehead fizzled. The punching stopped and Dudley looked down at his fists with a stupid expression before looking down farther and squealing when he realized he was half naked.

"What, what just happened?" he asked aloud. "Oi, freak, did you do something?" Dudley yelled. Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Wow, Dudleykins," he drawled, "you don't remember the gun shooting you dead? That's not something I'd forget."

"The Dying Will bullet," Reborn identified. Harry jumped as the baby's voice came from the branch next to him, swearing bloody hells as he lost balance and nearly fell. "A person shot with the Dying Will bullet will be revived with a Dying Will to pursue their last regret for five minutes. During those five minutes, your body's limits are released and you can ignore all pain."

"It apparently doesn't make you any smarter though," Harry commented, finally swinging out of the tree as he noticed Dudley fall on his bottom from delayed exhaustion and pain. "Guess that means you were born stupid, Duds. Will you be killing my cousin anymore today, Reborn?"

"No," Reborn replied. "The Dying Will bullets have limitations, and there are no proper doctors in the area."

"Wonderful," Harry sighed. "I'm going back now. Lunch will be ready in an hour and a half, you two. Enjoy yourselves," he parted sarcastically, trudging back to number four. Harry was ready to go back to normality for awhile, even if that meant weeding the garden and cooking the Dursleys lunch. Later, he'd try and solve the mystery that was Dudley's home tutor. Some extendable ears in Dudley's bedroom and a few letters to Hermione should go a long way in clarifying a few matters.

**A/N: It's been fun while the inspiration lasted, I guess. It's funny - originally, I was going to have this whole two part epic, where in this story Harry was going to meet Reborn and possibly just have a research adventure figuring out Reborn's secrets while trying to keep his own mixed with the crazy 'slice of life with a baby hitman' adventure, and the second part being Harry joining Tsuna. But, well, I stopped reading Reborn halfway through the Future Arc and have only seen its fanon since. The necessary research to continue this story properly puts a damper on my enthusiasm, really. Meh.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2: Asking for Answers

**A/N: You guys are, as always, awesomely enthusiastic about my stories. Thank you!**

**This chapter addresses why Reborn is here with Dudley, which many of you wondered about.**

**Also, I'm not advocating the consumption of ADHD pills. It was something I threw in there because I wanted Harry to be a bit more intelligent/educated than JKR's background for him would allow, but it bugs me to just have Harry decide to buckle down and read books because he's finally realized knowledge is power. It doesn't work that way. People who don't enjoy reading or aren't naturally inclined towards academics can't just choose to read and process and understand a couple hundred pages of knowledge a day. This doesn't mean that ADHD pills can solve this problem either. Harry just happens to be susceptible to them in my story. Don't freak. They won't stick around.**

Chapter Two

Asking for Answers

"Done with the garden, then, Boy?"

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry replied to his aunt who was glaring from the window and patted himself down for loose clumps of dirt.

"Good. Take a shower and change quickly so you can get started on lunch. Afterwards, I want you to clean out Dudley's room while he's out at the gym with his home tutor, is that understood?"

Harry wrinkled his nose in disgust at the mention of needing to clean his cousin's room, not bothering to turn his head so his aunt picked up on his obvious distaste. She gave a spitefully vindicated glare in return and slammed the window shut.

Lunch was essentially a repeat of breakfast but with more food. Harry excused himself as soon as he could and made his way upstairs. Normally he loathed cleaning Dudley's room. It was always mess of toys and food and – since last year – drugs and porn. The previous summer, however, Harry struck gold cleaning through the disaster. One of the school counselors had diagnosed Dudley with ADHD and immediately prescribed a bottle of medication. Personally, Harry thought the teachers were just desperate to do something about Dudley's bullying and distracting behavior, but it was to no avail as Dudley just threw the bottle out. Harry retrieved them and he was quite sure they were the only reason he avoided depression last year after seeing a schoolmate of his die before his eyes. One couldn't pay much attention to flashbacks of shooting green light when catching up on four years of muggle schooling.

Pity they gave him mood swings when he ran out of pills, but Harry would take the mood swings over the current hole in his chest any day. It was perhaps cold of him to say so, but Sirius' death meant a lot more than Cedric's, and Harry's attempts to ignore it all were failing by the passing minutes. Surely Dudley had a new bottle this summer?

Quickly dropping by his own room for an extendable ear, the wizard teen bugged his cousin's room with an extendable ear by punching through an abandoned mouse hole behind a dusty bookshelf into his own room, then beginning to clean up the dirty clothes strewn across the floor.

The young wizard's breathing began to speed up as he sorted the mess in his cousin's bedroom layer by layer, searching through the trash and shelves as he went through to no avail. There was no sign of his treasure and the thought increased his anxiety with each passing minute.

'What a waste,' Harry thought to himself, trying to detach himself from the situation. 'All those books I bought won't be read, now. Maybe I'll just give them to Hermione for her next birthday.'

Harry stumbled into his bedroom, fell onto his cot, and didn't move the rest of the day, staring blankly at the wall through his aunt's shrieks and the literal explosions resulting from Dudley pissing his home tutor off. None of it mattered really.

The next morning, an explosion nearly rocked the foundations of 4 Privet Drive and Harry tumbled off his cot to land hard on the floor. For a moment, Harry contemplated just staying there as he hardly cared whether he was on the floor or his rickety cot, but Hedwig hooted and tapped from outside the shattered window, so Harry stepped over the broken glass and retrieved her. She was carrying a letter from Hermione asking him if he was settling in with the Dursleys well and reminding him to send his letters "as agreed upon every three days" so 'they' would know he was still safe. As expected, she avoided any mention of topics related to Voldemort and easily dodged explicit references to the Order.

Not wishing to go downstairs at this moment and confront the Dursleys, Harry grabbed a quill, ink, and parchment from his trunk, sat down on his desk that was dusty from the bomb, and started a letter to his best friend.

_Hermione,_

_The summer just started and it's already pretty insane. Normally the adventures happen at school, except maybe for those dementors last summer, and well, there was the World Cup the year before, and blowing up Aunt Marge the year before, plus Dobby nearly getting me expelled the year before that._

_Actually, maybe this is just life stepping up like usual, 'cause I'm in something pretty serious. The Dursleys haven't been any worse than usual, but Dudley has a home tutor, and my Aunt and Uncle think he's a midget, but he's definitely a baby._

_Like, physically younger than three years. No, Hermione, I'm not delusional, I swear, he's really a baby, who also happens to wear formal suits, sets bombs as traps around the house, owns a chameleon that can transform into a gun, and he shot Dudley with something called a 'Dying Will Bullet' that instead of killing him, made his forehead explode in flames and made him try to correct his last regrets._

_Have you ever heard of a curse that de-ages a person? And what about that bullet? I've yet to see a wand, so I'm not sure if he's a wizard or a muggle, but he didn't seem to recognize me. Of course, he says Ciao a lot, and that's Italian, right? Is the rest of Europe as insane when it comes to the Boy-Who-Lived, or is it just the UK?_

_Harry_

_P.S. Please inform the original DA that they suck. Reborn – the baby, sorry, I forgot to tell you his name – held a gun and shot my cousin in broad daylight. Dudley then proceeded to chase after me half naked with his forehead on fire. Throughout this event, not a single member of them showed up, nor have I received so much as an 'is everything ok?' after the FOUR bombs that have exploded in the house since I've come back._

_P.P.S. I'm not joking about any of this Hermione, really, though you probably have to see it to believe it. Actually, cell phones have cameras nowadays, don't they? Do you think you could buy me one? I'll pay you back later. If this summer is like last year's, Dumbledore won't want you sending letters in case they're intercepted, but surely phone calls would be safe?_

Waving the letter in the air lightly to dry the ink, Harry groped around his trunk for some string before tying the letter to Hedwig's leg.

"Take this back to Hermione, 'kay girl?"

Hedwig hooted softly, then flew out the window, which was currently nothing more than a hole in the wall. Surely if Reborn was that worried about security, he'd have to realize that a large hole that resulted from the exploded window is a lot more dangerous that an unbooby-trapped window that still had glass? And didn't muggles have something called bullet-proof glass? Maybe that was still just a Hollywood thing, he mused, from those action movies Dudley's so fond of.

Dodging past his fuming Aunt, Harry slipped out of the house. Despite skipping dinner yesterday, he wasn't hungry this morning, so he chose to go to the library instead in the hopes that he'd be left alone there. He had no such luck as Reborn appeared before him from around the corner, Dudley collapsed and panting on the sidewalk beside him.

Harry eyed the duo suspiciously for a moment before deciding that Dudley was hardly a threat on the floor as he was, and he couldn't bring himself to care about the baby.

"So what exactly are you, Reborn?"

Reborn looked up at Harry from beneath the brim of his hat, rosy and chubby cheeks framed by curly-q sideburns. Was it physically possible for a baby to grow sideburns? Maybe they were just heavily styled locks of hair. "Ciao, Harry Potter. Since you are family of my charge, I should tell you that I'm a hit man from the mafia. Did you know that you have people watching you? I don't believe it's a result of my presence, but I would like to apologize nonetheless."

Harry winced. "Ah, yeah, about that. Don't worry about it, 'cause if they're watching me, then it's not because you're here. So what's the mafia doing with Dudley, anyway?" he asked, trying to distract Reborn from his magical guards.

"The number of candidates for succeeding the Vongola family has been steadily decreasing through the generations, thus I was sent to explore a more distant branch of the bloodline," Reborn explained. "It's highly doubtful anything will come of this since there's a much more direct descendent in Japan, but it would be good to keep an eye on England since it's located much closer to Italy."

Harry gaped. "Dudley's related to mafia?"

"Distantly," Reborn explained. "A branch of my charge's ancestry married into the family five generations before the first Vongola head. Thus, the boy is not a descendent of the Vongola, but still a blood relation."

"Wait," Harry hurried to clarify, "this relation, it's through Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia?"

"Your uncle."

"Thank Merlin," Harry exclaimed, hand to his chest. "So I've zero blood relations to the mafia, right?"

"That's right," Reborn confirmed, "but you're still welcome to join the family if you can prove your worth."

Harry laughed. "In your dreams. If there's even the slightest chance Dudley becomes head of your mafia gang, I'd rather move to the other side of the world."

Reborn stared at Harry, and for a moment Harry worried the baby was insulted, when Reborn finally spoke up. "You seem strangely accepting of this information."

Harry gave a wry grin. "I've seen stranger things than babies serving as hit men for the mafia. Not by much, mind you, 'cause that is pretty strange, and if you add in the fact that you're likely some fully trained adult forced into that body I'm not sure if that makes it more or less strange." Harry shrugged. "I need something to distract me anyway, since I couldn't find Dud's meds yesterday."

"You've been taking them?" Dudley asked, finally contributing to the conversation now that he's caught his breath. "But they're prescription. Who knows how fucked up you could get."

"Oh that's rich, Duds, considering the illegal drugs I've found in your room last year. ADHD pills should be the least of your worries, really. It's not like you or your parents care about my health, anyway, right? So unless you've got some more to offer, do shut up."

Dudley frowned. "The doctor retracted his diagnosis, so I don't have any more. And besides, well, I, er…"

"What's wrong Dud? Use too many big words and now your brain is clean out of things to say?"

"Shut up, you freak," Dudley scowled, giving up on whatever it was he was trying to tell his cousin, choosing instead to get up from the ground and skulk away, leaving Reborn behind with Harry.

Reborn ignored the leaving teen in favor of staring at Harry more. It was rather unnerving, actually, to be the target of such a steady gaze from the face of a toddler.

"Normally," Reborn spoke aloud, "I'd take this opportunity to shoot you with the Dying Will Bullet, but you don't seem at all irritated by his label for you, so I'm unsure if you hold any regret at this moment for not making him take it back."

Shrugging, Harry turned away as well, unwilling to flounder through another conversation with Reborn before Hermione replied to his current questions. "I'm used to it – there's no point in thinking thoughts like making him take it back. By this point, a part of my cousin probably thinks 'freak' is actually my name, you know? As for things I'd regret if I died right now... Ha. None of them are things that can be resolved, or even pursued, in five minutes of 'dying will.'"

A gunshot sounded and Harry turned around in shock to watch Dudley fall on face, having been shot through the back of the head.

"Bloody hell," Harry swore, glancing at Reborn with wide eyes. "What exactly is Dudley regretting right now, huh?"

Reborn shrugged, placing his chameleon back on his hat.

"Then he might be dead?" Harry gasped, but before he could approach his cousin's prone body, Dudley tore out of his clothing with a roar, his hair up in flames.

"REBORN! I will tell the freak how I feel with my dying will!"

"… Eh?"

Dudley turned around and once more began chasing after Harry. Instinctively, the smaller boy turned tail and ran as well. Why was it that Dudley was always regretting not beating him up? Surely the baby was playing with him, constantly shooting his cousin so that he'd be pursued by the dying-will empowered boxer. Harry was starting to feel a bit more than just confused and irritated by Dudley's clearly sadistic home tutor.

This time the young wizard headed towards the park and climbed the first tree he came across by swinging up the lowest branch. It wasn't as tall and sturdy as the oak he used before, but it would have to do since he didn't have quite as large a head start in the chase as yesterday.

"RAH!" Dudley roared, crashing into the tree and making Harry flinch as the branches shook. "Potter you freak! Thank you for saving me last summer! I'm sorry for blaming you!"

… Eh?

The fire extinguished, Dudley looked down at his nearly naked self and squealed, ran off, and left behind a very confused wizard clinging to the branches of a tree, glasses askew as he tried to comprehend the words yelled at him.

"That's good to know."

"Whoa!" Harry leaned back from the voice, tumbling out of the tree and landing in the grass with an 'oomph!' before looking up to see Reborn standing in the upper branches. He glared at the toddler who hopped down lightly from branch to branch in a nonchalant manner. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

"I did not know this would happen."

"Then if Dudley wasn't regretting anything?"

"I'm a hit man."

"Oi," Harry called out at the leaving figure, swinging to his feet. "Don't give me that bull. You better not get my cousin killed."

"Funny that you care. He's still family to you, then?"

Harry snorted. "Yeah right. I don't count any of them as family and they'd kill me before acknowledging me. Still, I don't exactly have any other blood relatives."

"So it's good, isn't it?" Reborn chirped. "Now you know that neither you nor my charge hate each other. Such things are important to get out of the way before emergencies."

"Emergencies? Hey, what do you mean by that?" Harry questioned. "Hey, earlier, you said those people watching me might be your fault, right? Do you have enemies that follow you around? Hey, answer me!"

Reborn didn't answer, and when Harry followed him around a corner, he disappeared. Eventually, Harry gave up. It was close to lunch time so likely both Dudley and his home tutor returned to the Dursley house. He was feeling a bit hungry himself, and preparing the meal would calm his aunt's ire a bit as well. He'd delay his visit to the library for the afternoon.

For a moment, Harry smiled at the thought of his aunt hearing the rumors of her precious son being seen running around the neighborhood nearly naked. He gave a regretful sigh that he wouldn't be able to see such a reaction. Aunt Petunia was amazingly capable at selective hearing. If, after all these years of Dudley bullying the smaller kids and smoking drugs in the alleyways with his gang, she managed to maintain her picture perfect image of her wonderfully normal son, this new event likely wouldn't make any difference.

He could still tease Dudley about it, of course. Hmm…

**A/N: So I'm realizing that I've written myself into a tight spot with the whole 'order ignoring Harry's plight' issue. I don't want to make the Order of the Phoenix filled with idiots, and I don't want to write an evil Dumbledore fic because I'll give myself an aneurysm trying to make it realistic, so how to have a bunch of guards be muggle ignorant and stupid enough to not be worried about explosions? Or maybe have Reborn cover some of the stuff up? Grr...**

**15 reviews by 1/20/14. Thanks everyone!**


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